As a public service to those who are coming along with the early stages of their writing career as well as those who consider themselves experienced in the field, I am going to break down my writing process as I tackle a topical verse for a crew battle. It’s something I've wanted to do for awhile, and this particular verse turned out to be an excellent example. A lot of text will be reposted as I show updated versions of the verse so try to highlight the new content via bolded text. Feel free to skip over as much of the ‘data’ as you’d like. Onwards to insight. Everything passed this section was written in sequence as I approached the verse. Hope you can take something from it.
One of the most critical pieces of advice I will offer is to not be afraid to switch your shit up. If a portion of a verse is feeling flat, sometimes you've got to remove a sizeable chunk to take it in the direction you want to. Moving on, I’ll explain the process I went through from the very beginning of this verses construction up to it’s completion.
This article will explain in detail how the writing process is as important as any of factor contributing to your end result. This particular piece was written to the topic “Getting sent back in time to the 1800s”
I approached it with a curiosity, however manufactured, of what an average day would look like in the lives of men and women from the era we were writing about. I decided to make a list of points I picked up on from various articles I read. It turned out something like this:
Boys
- cut split carried wood for stove or fireplace
-tending to farm animals
-carried water to house, well water
-putting up / repair fencing
-gardens/fields/orchards
-hunting/trapping/fishing; provide food for family
Girls
-cooking
-milking cows and goats
-collecting eggs
-churning butter
-make bread / cheese
-preserving food
-cleaning/laundry
-making candles
-sewing clothes
-wool and flax to spin and weave
-care for the young and elderly
Children learned to read and write at home or in simple 1 room schoolhouse
Teacher usually single women, as young as 14 of 15
Either a local or from far away living with a local family
Sometimes walk 2-3 miles to/from (students and teachers)
Started work before sunrise, worked until the evenings on some occasions
Having a set of details and a picture painted in your subconscious will naturally enhance your imagery as you approach the verse. My next step is to pick the angle I’m going to approach this at. I generally try and take the non-obvious approach in order to bring a fresh verse with fresh concepts to the table. Although at this point I am unaware the specific direction I will go, I know I’m not going to write something as cut and dry as walking in a time machine and being teleported back.. Na, I’m gonna go with my strengths, write about something I am knowledge about (or become knowledge about via research). I also want to bring an extra bit of pizazz to the verse. This is accomplished in many many different ways such as teaching the reader something, intense storytelling, twists, excessive literary devices, all of the above, ect. Next step is narrowing down the concept and see where it takes me.
My first idea was for it to be a concealed FBI file of an event which they had covered up. While writing this I thought of an idea that I’m going to write it down here. I had chosen for it to be 1933 when he got sent back 100 years. I read up on what happened in 1833 and there was this thing called the Kansas City Massacre. So my idea is to have the plot of the verse conclude to, in some way, be the cause of the massacre. Not sure if this will be possible but I’ll read more into it later.
From here I begin to construct a timeline of my verse and the content it addresses along with extra notes of possible links including future explorations into increased depth. I ad libbed a perspective of a full grown man going back in time, but also being reverted to an infant and reliving life, and reflecting back on both lives. Earlier I had decided I wanted to format it like an fbi file. I jotted down some notes to that effect:
this was his statement:
landed in 1833, he was 3, happened shortly after the kansas city massacre
grew up with a family that found him (work interesting time travel into how he got there and how he was found)
discuss his early years, give details on mother/father/siblings/and self
discuss details of details leading up to the massacre.
Also wrote a line that goes with a section of self reflecting in the statement:
And me? I’m just a lonely sadist saviour in his open church
Invaders in your home, you know that pain is in the overture
Am now going to put on an instrumental, read up on the Kansas City Massacre, then convert this into writing. As I complete a section that incorporates the ‘research’ I’ll delete it from the list of notes jotted down earlier.
I was a picture perfect timid thing in midst of middle ages
Was the prince of little things which build my frame, a simple patron
And the skills I’ve gained, the will and traits of bravery instilled, obtained
I’m maybe waiting patiently to pillage every villain, slay their guilty nature
Filled my wage in silk while bragging, till one day came stillness
And my realness ends, away with that, reels to credits, stained it black
Near the days I’m tossed there I forget that logic plays it back
The thoughts I father foster both my sons and daughters bayonets
Did way with all the bassinets till fate displayed a candid grin
It takes me from the famous life and drags me to the past again
Changed me and my actions, in repayment it retracts my sins
My back on crib and candace un-maimed as an assassins skin
Was the first of our new kinship, then came little sister Alice
It’s 1833 and mom made dinner, passed me pablum
And her hands both badly calloused because Dad had thrown his back out
When his axe had smacked a bad knot, now hes pacified and laid off
I am not completely satisfied with the way this is going but I’m getting sick of writing so I’m going to take a break, perhaps change the direction when I get back.
Decided to edit some out and completely change the direction of the concept. It’s now going to be about a boy talking to his grandfather who is reliving his childhood. Heres the progressed version:
I was a picture perfect timid thing in midst of middle ages
Was the prince of little things which build my frame, a simple patron
And the skills I’ve gained, the will and traits of bravery instilled, obtained
I’m maybe waiting patiently to pillage every villain, slay their guilty nature
Filled my wage in silk while bragging, till one day came stillness
And my realness ends, away with that, reels to credits, stained it black
Near the days I’m tossed there I forgot that logic plays it back
The thoughts I father foster both my sons and daughters bayonets
Did way with all the bassinets till fate displayed a candid grin
It takes me from the famous life and drags me to the past again
Changed me and my actions, in repayment it retracts my sins
My back on crib and candace un-maimed as an assassins skin
of the layers laying on the blades of grass within
The last line is incomplete, I jotted that down before the final ad lib and it was, obviously, the first line I completed afterwards. This allowed me to polish prior lines while they were fresh in my head without forgetting the direction I wanted to go.
He was the prince of little things which built my frame, a simple patron
And the skills I’ve gained, the will and traits of bravery instilled, obtained.
I may be waiting patiently to pillage every villain, slay their guilty nature
Filled my wage in silk while bragging, till one day came stillness
And my realness ends, away with that, reels to credits, stained it black
Near the days I’m tossed there I forget that logic plays it back
The thoughts I father foster both my sons and daughters bayonets
Did way with all the bassinets till fate displayed a candid grin
It takes me from the famous life and drags me to the past again
Changed me and my actions, in repayment it retracts my sins
My back on crib and candace un-maimed as an assassins skin
Grew as a kid of labour, laying traps in blades of grass to get
an animal, drag it back for mama who would bag the bad meat
Me and dad, as hunters, take the sack as bait to catch it’s mate
Maintain the stash we ate from, trait of man to take no glamour
Stacked beside the gate we had a paved-in patch to axe swing
And the blade would slash the oak tree at an angle, into fractions
I would take them to the stove so we could bake them into rations
Because mama made the pasta dashed with basil, glazed in flax seed
And the light blazed from the candles she created, faces happy
We said grace and sat there laughing and engaging as a family
Chatted on our daily tasks, the radishes, the grapes and cabbage
They’d been picked, we ate them mixed with grains to make a salad
Then replaced the plates from appies to a steak, potatoes, balanced.
Scraped each ounce then dab our faces, now it’s on to cake
It’s crowned with frosting layers draped around its framed surrounding
And we drank the milk we drained from cows before its stale or soured
Because waste would take the actions that we break our backs for
Make them greater, escalate, and strain us in some way or manner
It takes more than a great mustache to make a man. Put faith in that
as good I say it had been, your great pa-pa would name us slackers
And just as your age is bad, the path you pave will take you blacker
I completed the 32 line limit, though feel I could easily have surpassed it. I feel the voice of the verse and its perspective is unclear and feel like it needs an overhaul.
The biggest criticism I (and others) had for this verse was the need for a twist, for that little something extra that makes the verse to leave a lasting impression. As I write this I don’t know exactly how I’m going to achieve that, however I am going to cut out the first quarter(ish) of the verse, the section I had written for my previous concept idea, and replace it with something more fitting, perhaps playing off the message I chose to end with. I will alter the part I have removed and use it for a verse in the future.
Finally thought of the final angle of the verse. Its about a father talking to his son, Abe, how he cockily sat through the potato famine, and speaking to him from beyond the grave.(To be revealed in the finale.) Cannibalistic family.
The final version:
The past can really take you back.. Ireland’s our Native Land
Above me, my son Abe is asking, pa pa, why’d you stay? You sat and
Lasted eight years to the day, in fact, Potato Famine taints your land
What Abe don’t grasp, theres ways which we could stay, adapt
Grew a kid of labour, trained to trap. Lay them down in blades of grass
Pray to get a great big catch, when gazing at grazing pack, we’re hungry
And a gun goes bang, would scare them, couldn’t take the chance
Our aims fantastic, barrelless, it’s arrows in our strained elastics
Drag it back for Mama who would bag the meat that's bad, then
Me and dad, as hunters, take the sack as bait to catch it’s mate
Maintain the stash we ate from, trait of man to take no glamour
Stacked beside the gate we had a paved-in patch to axe swing
And the blade would slash the oak tree at an angle, into fractions
I would take them to the stove so we could bake them into rations
Because Mama made the pasta dashed with basil, glazed in flax seed
But the ache still stabs me, damn, it takes me back, the seasons changing
No more deer around here grazing, so the meals were all occasions
It had seared your Grandma badly, she appeared so hollow, vacant
And one day, exhaustion takes her. Certain fact, her cheeks amazing
So we ate her, sadly, she was first to pass and she looked tasty…
But we made it, days grew happier, the pain was soothed away
And we grew a great potato crop, the same way that it used to be.
I married off a maiden, she got pregnant and produced you, Abe
You grew up raised to wait your turn, to stomach every vegetable
That sometimes they are scarce, so taste is nothing, its digestible
If nothing, it will rescue you from suffering, a lesson for whats coming
The men said plague is coming back, it’s stressful but it’s coming
I mentioned to your mom that my repentance had been summoned
Cause my energy had plummeted, my mettles an encumbrance
So the day that I drew breathless she dissected me to eat, like deer
The reason that you’ve even here regretting what your teeth had pierced
You stand beside my tombstone and your grieving through a sea of tears
From underneath my grave I say these words I wish that he could hear
I’m gonna re-read to edit spelling mistakes (and probably fix them before posting this) Then I will finally be complete. I do not often switch verses around to this extent. This is one I wanted to be happy with before posting, and at many times I didn’t think it was going to be achieved. Receiving another opinion for the verse confirmed suspicions I had about the response and took the guesswork out of it.
The final piece of advice I will pass forth is this. No matter what level of experience you have come to possess, whether you consider yourself an apprentice or master of the arts, progression is infinite. The greatest way to take advantage of this knowledge is to continuously read others work with the intention of learning from it. There are lessons in every drop. Whether visible or opaque, intentional or serendipitous, they exist and are ripe for the picking. If site betterment isn’t a valid motivator to continuously ingest the work of your peers, perhaps self betterment will be.
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